


Wait for It, Lee

by flibbertygigget



Category: Assassins - Sondheim/Weidman, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Assassination, Booth vs Burr, Gen, Racist Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5944998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee has to make a choice.</p><p>Booth or Burr?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wait for It, Lee

"Take a look, Lee. You know what that is? That is America. And you have a shot to blow it wide open."

John Wilkes Booth. Traitor, coward, legend. Lee shakes his head. He has to get this madman out of his head.

"Wait, Lee. Look around. Why would you listen to him?"

Another man. Slightly shorter, slightly older. Careworn.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Ah, so you don't recognize me. Good." The man flicks the ash from his ghostly cigar. "You can call me Aaron Burr."

Aaron Burr? Traitor, coward, killer. Lee shakes his head again. Perhaps he is the madman. Yes. That's the only possible explanation.

"Why are you here?"

"I killed the President, just like you will, Lee. Just like you will. And you know what happened? I became a legend."

"I did not kill the President."

"Wait, Hamilton wasn't a President?" Aaron Burr rolls his eyes.

"Only of the New York Manumission Society."

"What?"

"Exactly." Booth snarls, pushing aside Burr.

"Why would you listen to him?" he says. "You heard him, he never killed the President. Don't you want to kill the President?"

"I... think so?"

"Good. So shoot him." Lee looks out the window. JFK's car is in perfect position. He picks up his gun and begins to aim-

"You know, if Hamilton had decided to go through with the duel, the way he was supposed to, it would have all been seen as a horrible accident."

"What?"

"If he hadn't thrown away his shot... But then I wouldn't be here, would I? I wouldn't be here to caution you against making my same mistakes. People will hate you, Lee."

"Of course they will," Booth says. "They'll despise you with a passion. Imagine that, people having  _passion_ for Lee Harvey Oswald." Lee looks out the window. The car doesn't move, time is suspended. "All you have to do is choose."

"Lee, do you want to be the villain in their history, like me? Do you want all your life, all your accomplishments watered down into that one bullet?"

"You're both insane," Lee says.

"On the contrary, I am a man of principle," Booth says. "Isn't that what you've always wanted, Lee? To be known for your principles?"

"Booth, that is the difference between you and I," says Burr. "No one knows what I believe, and everyone knows what you believe. But, in the end, isn't my way better? I may be a footnote, but you'll always be a racist traitor."

"And the only way people know your name is because some nigger played you on Broadway."

"SHUT UP!" Lee is confused, furious. Lee wants to shoot the President. Lee doesn't want to shoot the President. Lee is... Lee is...

"I am ahead of the curve. American society is rotten, broken. I can make it better."

"Of course!"

"That's absurd." Lee stares at Burr. "If America is broken, killing one man won't fix it. If America isn't broken, than why kill the President?"

"Oh, well then, what would you suggest, Mr. I-Didn't-Kill-a-President?" Lee says sarcastically. Burr sighs.

"If it's broken, fix it, but I doubt that it's broken."

"America is dead, Marxism is the future."

"Oh, you're one of those, are you?" Burr gives him a penetrating look that makes Lee feel as though he is the ghost and Burr is the human. "Well, I suppose you ought to like me then. After all, I did kill the man who made all this possible."

"All our oppression?"

"All the disease," Booth cuts in eagerly. "All the pestilence that makes America a great cesspool. All the abuse that creates a world in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. All the evil-"

"You sound like Jefferson," Burr says. "He was always talking on about how the poor farmers were the backbone of our civilization and the bankers just rank gamblers hoping to rob them. But look at it this way. Who had farther to climb than Alexander Hamilton?" Lee doesn't answer. "Look out there. That is America. The land of opportunity, the land where even orphan immigrants can leave their fingerprints on the fabric of our nation. How many people climbed from indignity to be there? How many had ancestors who did so? Would that have been possible anywhere else?"

"Don't listen to him," Booth says. "He's a tool of them. We're the ones who know the truth. We're the ones who hold the flame, the bullet, the power."

"So did I," Burr says. "But, in the end, what was my legacy? Nothing but one moment, one mistake. No one even knows what led to that moment, what I was thinking as I shot him. No one cares about me, and no one will care about you, only about your act."

"What else am I supposed to do?" Lee says. He is frustrated, so frustrated, and tired, as though the weight of his decision is bearing down on him. He has had too much time for second guessing.

"Shoot him!" Booth says, but Lee has turned to Burr, is talking to Burr.

"What am I supposed to do?" Burr considers the question, staring at the sky as though it will provide the answers he seeks.

"Make your decision," he says finally. "It is always your decision, your legacy. But if you want my opinion... Wait."

"What?"

"Wait."

Lee looks out the window, the President in his sights. Wait. The word pulses in him like another heartbeat. The moment is still frozen, his finger still poised on the trigger. He looks up to ask Booth and Burr for a straight answer, something to latch onto, but they are gone.

The moment cracks open like a gunshot. The President turns the corner, and Lee falls back. He waited too long.

Years later, Lee is glad for it.


End file.
